How to Save a Life
by Blondejoke101
Summary: Songfic set to The Fray's "How to Save a Life". This is my first ever House, M.D. so please read and review! Does not contain Cudd/Wilson. They're just the main-ish characters. Warnings: Season five spoilers. Harsh violence.


**A/N: My first ever **_**House, M.D.**_** fic! I'm excited to see what my reception will be! It's a song fiction set to **_**The **_**Fray's "How to Save a Life". Please read and review! **

**Warning: Contains season 5 spoilers (I think it's season five, that was the last season they had on TV so far, right?) In this story, Season five was the last season ever, but only in this story. Season six should still play on TV sometime soon I hope.**

* * *

_(Cuddy's POV)_

**Step one, you say, "We need to talk"  
****He walks, you say, "Sit down, it's just a talk"  
****He smiles politely back at you  
****You stare politely right on through**

I watched as House sunk deeper and deeper into his Vicodin addiction. I tried to talk to him about it, "House, we need to talk." At first he would smile politely and say, "Cuddy, don't worry. I know what I'm doing." Years later, after it became apparent he was addicted, he started defending the it "Sit down House, it's just a talk." I'd say. "I'm fine! Get off my back, Mother!" He'd say in all his juvenile-ish disrespect.

**Some sort of window to your right  
As he goes left and you stay right  
Between the lines of fear and blame  
You begin to wonder why you came**

I'd just turn my head and look out the window. As much as I hated to admit it, there wasn't a thing I could do about it. He's always been the "dominant" one if you will. Never listening to me, always going his own way… the list goes on and on, even as far a breaking the law. Eventually I stopped wondering why he did what he did the way he did it. His methods worked and the Vicodin only helped. Behind my "fears and problems" with the Vicodin, I actually thought it could do no harm. My "fears and problems" were an aid to his work, they were a ploy. I never tried very hard to get him to quit it. Not truly.

**Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend  
Somewhere along in the bitterness  
And I would have stayed up with you all night  
Had I known how to save a life**

Maybe that was where I went wrong. Not making him quit. Putting up with all the crap he gave me. We bickered back and forth like a couple of seven year olds, the only difference being the language of adults. Sometimes very immature adults. Somewhere, the bitterness actually did what I never thought it would. It split us apart. The end result was me walking out on him when he said what he said last week. Maybe if I had stayed a little longer, if I didn't let his cold heartless words affect me as much. "You can go suckle the little bastard child if it makes you feel good about yourself." Maybe if I hadn't have answered with "Screw you." If I had known, I would have stayed with him. All that night and the next too. I would've stayed up the whole night just to get him over the three day hump. But I didn't know. I didn't know I'd lose my friend to that _insane, asinine, stupid_ mental hospital. And now he's back, but not the way I would prefer. Instead of being wrapped in a congratulatory hug for completing his detoxification, he's laying in the hospital bed with confusion, respiratory problems, swollen lips and throat, and a red rash with hives. I'm just glad Allison and Robert, or Cameron and Chase as we normally call them, were there when his symptoms first started appearing. They were able to get him to the hospital sooner than if they weren't there. I don't know what's wrong with him. No one does. It's all pointing to a serious allergic reaction of some sort but we can't pinpoint what it is. If we don't figure it out soon, he'll die.

* * *

_(third person's POV)_

**Let him know that you know best  
'Cause after all, you do know best  
Try to slip past his defense  
Without granting innocence**

Doctor Allison Cameron-Chase walked into the hospital room. "House, I'm going to give you some Hydrocodone and Acetaminophen. Hopefully they'll help with your symptoms. At the very least they'll make you feel better." She said with a smile that was more like a grimace. "The others don't know, but I didn't have time to tell them. I think these will work. They will make you better." She injected the needles into the IV drip.

"I'm just glad I retained a few tricks from the master. I know what needs to be done and what doesn't now." She whispered as she sat down in the chair against the wall of the room. He didn't answer, but that was expected what with his swollen throat. They'd had to push the breathing tube through his esophagus from the bottom of his neck instead of his mouth. She watched him for a half an hour with a blank face while silently seething inside.

* * *

_(Cameron's POV)_

**Lay down a list of what is wrong  
The things you've told him all along  
Pray to God he hears you  
And pray to God he hears you**

I told him. I told him, I _told_ him, I TOLD HIM DAMMIT! I told him the Vicodin was bad for him, that it was going to drive him crazy. I told him time and again that the pills were going to change him, that he was addicted and that they were bad for him, I told him that his leg wouldn't hurt as bad if he would just stop taking the pills. He never listened. Never. Now he's gotten himself so hooked on the stupid things, he can't even detox properly. Stupid self-righteous bastard. My wedding day wasn't truly a wedding day. I was happy, but not as happy as I could've been. He never even listened to me, he tried to kill my husband. Morally corrupt bastard.

**And where did I go wrong? I lost a friend  
Somewhere along in the bitterness  
And I would have stayed up with you all night  
Had I known how to save a life**

Maybe if I had forced him into detox earlier. Harassed him constantly until he went into detox himself. Maybe then he wouldn't have tried to kill Robert. Oh, well. I suppose it doesn't matter now. He's dying and nobody knows how to fix it, how to help, how to save his life. I suppose the secret will go with him to the grave.

* * *

_(Wilson's POV)_

**As he begins to raise his voice  
You lower yours and grant him one last choice  
Drive until you lose the road  
Or break with the ones you've followed**

I sat in my office, thinking about the past few weeks. I had offered to House to over see his detox, but he said no, that he would cheat. He always found a way to cheat. Then he almost killed Chase, and hallucinated having sex with Cuddy. Cuddy brought House to me. We both decided that it would be better for House to go to the psychiatric hospital. He no longer had the choice. I ended up being the one to drive House there. Then he went up the stairs and in the door, while I did not. After so many years of following him, I could not bring myself to follow him up those stairs. I didn't even go to Carmon and Chase's wedding reception. I didn't join my friends on their happy day. I just went home. I needed a break from everything. Besides, I almost always followed House, I was no where near as close to them as I was to him. And he was fairly close to me too. Maybe that's why he came to me.

**He will do one of two things  
He will admit to everything  
Or he'll say he's just not the same  
And you'll begin to wonder why you came**

I was shocked when he came to me… no, to Cuddy… no, to us, when he came to us. Years ago I, or maybe we, once tricked him into realizing he had an addiction to the Vicodin. He ended up breaking his fingers before he realized he had the addiction. But then he defended it. He never thought that the drug would hurt him. He said that they allow him to do his job and take away his pain. I always thought the opposite, but still I watched him as he sunk farther and farther into the addiction.

**Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend  
Somewhere along in the bitterness  
And I would have stayed up with you all night  
Had I known how to save a life**

I didn't just watch House sink into his Vicodin addiction though, I pushed him into it. I aided him by feeding his habit, because it was easier than sitting there listening to him about why he wants, needs, and deserves the crap. To shut up his incessant whining I gave it to him. I'm as bad as he was. Maybe it I would've stopped giving him the prescriptions, and hid my slips where he would never think to look for them (inside my pants pocket's or something) his habit wouldn't have been fed so regularly. Then he wouldn't have landed himself in that psychiatric hospital and then he wouldn't have fallen ill. So I wouldn't be sitting here, feeling helpless while all I could do was twiddle my thumbs and wait for the test results to get back. And I wouldn't be feeling guilty because I had no clue how to save my best friend's life.

* * *

_(Foreman's POV)_

**Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend  
Somewhere along in the bitterness  
And I would have stayed up with you all night  
Had I known how to save a life**

I sat there in the testing room, staring at the computer print out. Every test we had thought up to give him came back negative. Thirteen and Taub were running still more tests but I was sure they would come back negative. We were missing something, I knew we were. I just couldn't put my finger on it. I walked to House's second office, the one we normally preformed the deferential in. I looked at his white board, all white and clean. I picked up the marker and wrote down the symptoms.

_Confusion._

_Respiratory Problems._

_Swollen lips and throat._

_Rash._

_Hives._

The only thing that made sense anymore was allergic reaction. But to what? House isn't allergic to anything. I went to his computer. Out of any other way to discover what he was allergic to, and partially out of frustration, I typed the symptoms into search engine. It's output was unsurprising. Allergic reaction. I clicked on a site and it listed off a list of substances that could cause it. But I accidentally clicked three times instead of two, and ended up in the section of the website devoted to drugs that caused it. For whatever reason, Hydrocodone and Acetaminophen stuck out like sore thumbs.

Then I realized those were the two ingredients in Vicodin. House had definitely ingested enough over the past 15 years to suddenly become allergic, but he was in detox! How was he getting it?! Who knows. It's House, he's always found a way to cheat. But he was steadily becoming worse as he was here. Wouldn't he be getting better? Unless he had found a way to take it without us knowing. Even so, I took an epi-pen with me, determined to shock the symptoms out of him enough to save him.

**How to save a life  
How to save a life**

I ran into the room, spurred on by the loudly humming heart monitor. I saw Cuddy sobbing into Wilson's shoulder as he likewise was sobbing into hers. Slowly they sank to the floor unable to support each other's weights. Thirteen was sitting in the chair in the corner her face pressed into her hands crying. Taub was doing what he could to comfort her. Chase had his arms wrapped around Cameron as she stared at House, a small smile playing at her lips probably remembering some memory the two of them had shared. She extracted herself from Chase's arms, slowly bending down to unplug the wretched machine that marked the end of a truly gifted soul. I fell to my knees instantly, dropping the epi pen in the process, realizing I was too late with the information. Too late to save his life.

* * *

_(Chase POV)_

**Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend  
Somewhere along in the bitterness  
And I would have stayed up with you all night  
Had I known how to save a life**

I was praying as I saw Foreman enter. The looks of shock, horror, and guilt crossed his face in seconds as he fell to his knees at the bottom of House's death bed, dropping the thing he held in his hands. I walked over to my friend and colleague. He just knelt there in shock, mumbling "Too late, I was too late." Occasionally adding in a "Acetaminophen" here and a "Hydrocodone" there. I bent down to pick up what he had dropped and was shocked to see it was an epi-pen.

"Why do you have this Foreman?" I asked.

"I finally discovered what it was that was kil- no, that did kill him." He said in a monotonous tone. I knelt next to him in order to hear him better. "He was allergic to Vicodin. He was in severe Allergic reaction. I hoped to shock it out of him. It's too late. _I_ was too late."

Irony is a cruel master. _House_ dying of an allergic reaction to the very thing that made him try to kill _me_ by allergic reaction. I know it was the hallucination of Amber that made him do it, I never held it against him. I should've known it was an allergic reaction. I could've saved him. None of us wanted this to happen. There was one question. How was he getting it into his system enough to kill him this quickly? He was supposed to be detoxing.

I stood up, catching a glance at his medical chart where it hung on the end of his bed. What I saw brought me crashing painfully back to my knees. I ignored the pain as I read the last two entries.

Drug Given: Hydrocodone - - - - Amount: 10 mg - - - - - Administered By: Dr. Allison Chase

Drug Given: Acetaminophen - - -Amount: 1000 mg - - - Administered By: Dr. Allison Chase

**(A/N: one Vicodin tablet contains 5 mg of hydrocodone and 500 mg of acetaminophen, according to Wikipedia)**

"Allison, can I have a word with you?" I asked, getting up, and feeling the pain shoot through my knees.

"Sure."

I led her out of the room, and into a broom closet, determined to divulge the truth.

**Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend  
****Somewhere along in the bitterness  
And I would have stayed up with you all night  
Had I known how to save a life**

"Allison, did you suspect that House was allergic to Vicodin?" I asked sure she had just made a simple mistake.

"Yes. I thought as much." I couldn't believe it.

"Do you know what Vicodin is made of?" I asked, hoping she was just ignorant.

"Hydrocodone and Acetaminophen." She said, a mean look in her eyes. She looked nothing like the woman I married.

"Then why did you give it to him?" I took out my cell out behind my back, and called 911, I heard a faint "Nine-one-one what is your emergency?" before I put it on speakerphone and turned up the volume to full.

"It started off just as revenge. When we visited I left a pill on his night stand and he found it and ate it. Then he reacted so wildly. We brought him in. Originally my revenge for his 'mistake' was to get him re-addicted to it. But then I saw how he reacted and decided murder was better. So I killed him for trying to kill you. Only don't tell anyone. You don't want to lose your beautiful wife do you?" She sneered, a tiny hint of a threat in her voice.

My phone jumped to life then "You killed a man? The cops are on their way!"

"Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, room 331!" I shouted before Cameron could grab it and shut it off.

I grabbed her around the waist and drug her to House's room, where I told the operator she would be. Everyone looked at me weirdly. Cameron was fighting me. Trying to escape. "She admitted it. She purposefully killed House." I spat at them. "Help me hold her while the cops come." Taub and Foreman leapt up to come to my aid.

She struggled harder, "HOW COULD YOU! I DID IT FOR YOU, ALL FOR YOU!" She yelled at me.

Calmly and smoothly I stated, "I want a divorce."

She screamed in utter rage.

* * *

_(Wilson's POV)_

**How to save a life  
How to save a life**

The cops came. Everyone was taken out separately and interviewed. The crime scene was processed, and Cameron was led away in cuffs, still screaming. The trial was short. She was convicted. The funeral was touching. A great many people stood up to speak. I was the last.

"There's not much I can say about Greg without the pain and the hurt causing me to double over. Most of you know what our relationship was like, and for those who don't it was basically an I insult you and you take it, me being the you and I being Greg if you get what I mean. Great in diagnostics, horrible at relationships. That's the best way I can describe him. And I wouldn't have had it any other way. He was my best friend. And he will be missed terribly. I LOVE YOU, HOUSE," I shouted to the heaven's. And then as an afterthought added, "AND NO, NOT IN THAT WAY!"


End file.
